mith when she was a-tellin' of me."

Inheriting from their forefathers such an unimaginative point of view,
most of the cottage folk have been, until quite lately, far from
regarding the public-house as a public nuisance. It had a distinct value
in their scheme of living. That fact was demonstrated plainly in an
outburst of popular feeling some years ago. The licensing magistrates of
the neighbourhood had taken the extreme, and at that time unprecedented,
course of refusing to renew the licenses of several houses in the town.
But while the example they had thus set was winning them applause all up
and down England, they were the objects, in this and the adjacent
villages, of all sorts of vituperation on account of what the cottagers
considered a wanton insult to their class. It must be admitted that the
action of the justices had some appearance of being directed against
the poor. Nobody could deny, for instance, that the houses frequented by
middle-class clients, and responsible for a good deal of middle-class
drinking, were all passed over, and that those singled out for
extinction served only the humblest and least influential. My neighbours
entertained no doubts upon the matter. They were not personally
concerned--at any rate, the public-houses in this village were left open
for them to go to--but the appearance of favouritism offended them. They
were as sure as if it had been officially proclaimed that the intention
was to impose respectability upon them against their will; their
pleasures were to be curtailed to please fanatics who understood nothing
and cared less about the circumstances of cottage folk. So, during some
weeks the angry talk went round the village; it was not difficult to
know what the people were thinking. They picked to pieces the character
of the individual magistrates, planning ineffective revenge. "That old
So-and-So" (Chairman of the Urban Council)--"they'd bin to his shop all
their lives, but he'd find he'd took his last shillin' from 'em now! And
that What's-his-Name--the workin' classes had voted for 'n at last
County Council election, and this was how he served 'em! He needn't
trouble to put up again, when his turn was up!" Then they commiserated
the suffering publicans. "Look at poor old Mrs. ----, what kept the house
down Which Street--always a most well-conducted house. Nobody couldn't
find no fault with it, and 'twas her livin'! Why should she have her
livin' took away like that, po